Astrophysics Past Paper PDF

Scientific Method Science is both a _______________________________ and a _______________________ When using the scientific method: First, ________________________ Create _______________________ Use it to _____________________ Finally, ______________________ Based...

Scientific Method Science is both a _______________________________ and a _______________________ When using the scientific method: First, ________________________ Create _______________________ Use it to _____________________ Finally, ______________________ Based on the results one might ________________________________ or continue to refine it. Using the scientific method you may prove that ____________________ Occam's razor says ___________________________ The Night Sky A group of stars forming a pattern is called an ___________ A pattern of stars and the surrounding area in the sky is a _____________ From the Earth, the moon appears to be _____________ across. During the course of the night stars appear to move _________________________ around the _____________ The sun appears _____________________ relative to the fixed stars. The path the sun travels through the stars once every __________ is called _______________ We need leap years because ____________________________________ Today, the calendar we use is ______________________ Our only natural satellite is ___________ Every month we see a cycle of__________________ We see phases of the Moon because _______________________________ _______________ means "with respect to the fixed stars". _______________ means "between alignments of the Sun, Earth, and a third object".  History of Astronomy Ancient Greeks did not do what we would call science because they __________________________ People started with a __________________ cosmology and thought everything moved in ___________ because they seemed most perfect and nice. The main problem was _________________________________________ Ptolemy fixed this with ________________ Centuries later it was advances in ___________________ that made the theory less workable. Copernicus revives the idea of a ___________________________________ and does some math. He finds the ____________________ of the inferior planets using their 'maximum elongation', which is __________________________________________ Using the observable synodic period, he calculates their ________________ Copernicus was not immediately believed partly because his predictions were ____________________ because he has assumed _______________________ Tycho Brahe had good data, a gold (really bronze) _______ , and could tell that a supernova was far away using ____________ Brahe made the best observations in the _______________________ Kepler used Brahe's data to formulate Kepler's laws: 1. 2. 3. Galileo Galilei was one of the first people to point ________________________ at the sky. He was able to observe ___________________________ and _____________________________ both of which support ______________________________ Isaac Newton changes what we now call physics. After him a theory has to be _____________ and make _____________________ to not seem silly. He describes the force of _________________ that has the form: Foucault's pendulum is direct evidence that ___________________________  Astronomy Basics The plane of the Earth's orbit around the sun is also called the __________________ We have seasons because ___________________________________ It is warm in the summer because our hemisphere is _________________ A __________________________ is 24 hours, a _______________________ is 23 hours 56 minutes. We always see the same side of the moon because it is __________________ which means its rotation period and orbital period are _____________ During a ______________________________ the moon blocks the sun. During a ______________________________ the moon is in the shadow of the Earth. We don't have eclipses every month because ____________________________________________ Coordinates The altitude-azimuth (alt-az) coordinate system is local and fixed to __________________ __________________ altitude is _______________________________ azimuth is _______________________________ The alt-az coordinates of a star depend on _______________________ and change___________ Right ascension and declination coordinates (R.A. and Dec.) are fixed to ________________ with _________________ spinning in the center. The R.A. and Dec. coordinates of a star ___________________ R.A. is the angle ______________________________________________________ and is measured in ____________________________ Dec. is the angle ___________________________________  Modern Astronomy Newton uses a prism to show that white light is ____________________________ Ole Rømer timed _____________________________________ and measured ____________________ Thomas Young shows that light is _________________ with his ________________________ James Clerk Maxwell shows that light is a wave of ___________________________ Visible light is a small part of the ___________________________ Kirchhoff found that heated elements had unique ____________________________ and light passing through a gas showed unique ________________________ which were at the same wavelength. In fact, every element has its own unique _________________________ This is the beginning of _________________________ which tells us lots things such as, there is iron in _________________ A blackbody spectrum is _________________________________________________________ It allows us to measure _________________________ from far away. Thinking about the blackbody spectrum led Max Planck to guess that energy ________________ Einstein used this idea to say that light ________________________ Now we see that spectral lines of an element come from electrons _________________________ When an electron goes from a high energy orbital to a low energy orbital it __________________ When an electron goes from a low energy orbital to a high energy orbital it __________________ Using spectral lines we can look at other galaxies and measure ____________________ Telescopes A refracting telescope has two ______________ and its total length is the sum of ________________ Newton built the first __________________________________, which has a mirror and a lens. Telescopes do three things: ___________________________________________________ Today images are captured on a _________________ As well as visible light, telescopes use __________________________________________